HotelChatter

Staying at a hotel in Philly, he noticed that his soap was being replaced daily, even if it was only slightly used. "You wouldn’t believe what happens here," he said in a phone call to his dad. "They throw away soap that is used only once." Kayongo and his father, a former soap maker in Uganda, had a laugh about privileged American wastefulness, but Kayongo soon had an aha! moment. What if he took some of the surplus soap back to Africa and recycled it into new soap to give to people who didn't have a single bar of soap at their disposal?

It sounds like a well-intentioned but pie-in-the-sky kind of idea you dream up after a few cocktails at the hotel bar, but Kayongo works for relief agency CARE International in Atlanta. He had the drive and the connections to make it happen—but he was still surprised when Atlanta hotel managers agreed to help him with the scheme.

So far, the Global Soap Project, has four tons of soap in storage, awaiting shipment. (And we thought our hotel-soap stash was big ...) Once in Uganda, it will be sterilized and reshaped into new bars of soap for distribution at refugee camps where soap and other toiletries are scarce. An added feel-good bonus: the work will create new jobs for locals.

The Ritz-Carlton Buckhead is one of 40 Atlanta hotels participating, donating their used bars of Bvlgari soap to the Global Soap Project and saving it from winding up in landfills.